February 13, 2013 "Information
Clearing House"
- This "news analysis" on North Korea's latest
nuke test in the New York Times is rather a lightly
disguised threat to China. Starve North Korea or we will
disable your strategic nuclear deterrence.

BEIJING — The nuclear test by North Korea on Tuesday, in
defiance of warnings by China, leaves the new Chinese
leader, Xi Jinping, with a choice: Does he upset North
Korea just a bit by agreeing to stepped up United
Nations sanctions, or does he rattle the regime by
pulling the plug on infusions of Chinese oil and
investments that keep North Korea afloat?

Notice
how this sets up a rather infantile false choice. China
could also just ignore the test and do nothing. China could
also chose to do some other stuff. It could embrace North
Korea by delivering more energy to it. It could ensure North
Korea that it would defend it with all its might should
there be any attack on it thereby rendering the North Korean
nuclear program unnecessary. There are many possibilities
besides punish small and punish big.

The
piece continues by framing this as a China U.S. relation
issue:

To
improve the strained relationship with the United
States, Mr. Xi could start with getting tougher on North
Korea, harnessing China’s clout with the outlier
government to help slow down its nuclear program. If Mr.
Xi does not help in curbing the North Koreans, he will
almost certainly face accelerated ballistic missile
defense efforts by the United States in Northeast Asia,
especially with Japan, an unpalatable situation for
China.

U.S.
missile defense is being build to render Russia's and
China's nuclear deterrence useless. The hope is that it will
enable first-strike capability. The U.S. could kill off most
of Russia's or China's nukes while having some reasonable
hope that its missile defense system will be capable of
holding of a much diminished retaliation strike.

No one
in China believes that the U.S. will ever stop its missile
defense plans in Asia. It is obviously part of Washington's
program to contain China. But just imagine China would
really agree to some serious pressure on North Korea while
the U.S. would offer a promise or even a treaty that it will
not build up its missile defense. How long would such a
promise hold?

The
U.S. promised to North Korea to build it two reactors for
electricity production should North Korea end its Plutonium
program. North Korea did end its Pu program but those
reactors were never built.

China
knows better than to believe that treaties the U.S. signs
will not be broken. It has
its own experience. The current hustle with Japan about
the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands is just one broken treaty
example:

The Potsdam Declaration (Declaration Defining Terms for
Japanese Surrender) of 1945 set the terms of Japan’s
unconditional surrender. It was issued jointly by the
Allied powers – the US, Britain, and China (the
Nationalist or Kuomintang government); and the Soviet
Union later “adhered to” the declaration. The Japanese
government explicitly accepted it. The declaration said
that Japan should retain no overseas territories.

A
later conference issued the Treaty of San Francisco in
1951, to mark the final settlement of the war in East
Asia and the official end of the Allied (American)
Occupation of Japan. The US excluded China from the
conference, which by then was governed by the Chinese
Communist Party. (The US also excluded the Nationalist
government, then resident in Taiwan but still claiming
to rule the mainland.) The treaty allocated to Japan
hundreds of islands south of Japan, comprising the whole
of Okinawa prefecture, including the Senkaku.

In
China’s eyes the Treaty of San Francisco and its
restoration of offshore islands to Japan is invalid,
because (1) it broke the Potsdam Declaration – the
foundation of the post-war order in East Asia — and (2)
it resulted from a negotiation in which the government
of China (one of the four Allied Powers) was not
represented. None of the overseas territories seized by
Imperial Japan, including the Senkaku, should have been
restored to Japan.

China
needs North Korea as a buffer against U.S. troops at its
borders. It will not do anything to ruin North Korea as a
chaotic and dissolving neighbor would be a huge security
problem for Beijing. Some slower build up of U.S. missile
defense would not solve that problem.

China
will probably agree to some mild sanctions on North Korea.
An even better strategy would be for the U.S. to come to its
senses and to make finally peace with North Korea thereby
making its nuclear capabilities unnecessary. China should
and could support that by giving security guarantees.

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